Coaching Carousel (Basketball)

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#226      
BryceHopkins
Gritty, welcome back!

I think the "Pitchfork Crew" is a bit of a misnomer. Very few on here are openly advocating that Brad be fired. A few are, but not many. However, a lot of us have observed several disturbing trends over the last few years, such as constant roster churn (more than the typical power conference school has seen), an alarmingly high number of asst. coaches leaving and being replaced by questionable/unqualified assistants, subpar in game management (weird substitutions, weird playing time distribution, lack of adjustments, awful SLOB, BLOB etc.), multiple losses to less talented teams, questionable talent evaluation last offseason, etc.

Coupled with the fact that Brad just doesn't seem like the same dude. The fire seems gone and he seems dejected and disinterested at times. I don't hate the guy, but sometimes change is good. It may be best for both parties for a change in leadership. Or, it may also be possible that Brad also sees this and plans on canning 2 of his assistants after the season and making some wholesale changes that would allow some of the "old Brad" to return to the sidelines and bring in asst. coaches who excel in his areas of weakness. I think a lot of us would be OK with that too.

But, I think that most of us can agree that this season has turned into a :poop: show with multiple, double-digit losses, bad home losses, and losses to inferior opponents. Our team often looks lost out there and the coaching staff has not had the answers to help them to succeed.

It's more than reasonable to question whether or not a change in leadership might not be in the best interest of the Program.
 
#227      
DevILLDawg
Indy Illini Fan said:
The players sure found it funny and it even got put in a group chat based off what I was told from parents/agents …

If the players don’t respect you … 🤷🏻‍♂️
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Is there any chance Tre White got DNP'ed for telling Brad he had better defensive coaching in Jr. High than Hamer?

That might be true though now that I think of it....
 
#229      
BalloonsTheElephant
My preferred options are:

Replace Kwa and Hamer. Move Tyler to the end of the bench.

Send Brad to a Basketball Coaching clinic where he learns to counter our PG getting doubled on a ball screen.

Replace Brad with Beard, Wade, Golden, or Miller (in that order). Beard and Golden are somewhat risky with baggage. Wade was just ahead of his time, lol.

The only way we move on from Brad is if we literally have one of those four on a plane to Champaign and a signed contract.

Brad's good enough, he just needs the support staff for game management.
 
#230      
Tables@EddieMunster
USAFILLINI said:
I actually enjoy both sides of the insiders. think were getting folks who are really close to the staff and have loyalties, and others who are really connected to the donors and the college hoops world as whole.

Who tried recruiting Podz when he left? If people knew what he would turn into, he wouldn't have ended up at Santa Clara. I'm not a huge fan of keeping BU, but hard to hold this against him. Kudos to Podz though, he felt passed over and busted his butt to become a really good player.
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Yeah, I’m not even mad at Brad over Podz. I like Brad and still hope he figures it out. The issue is the people that want Brad gone now absolutely lost their mind if one would suggest that Brad could’ve handled the situation differently.
 
#231      
bluemountain
Fly Illini Fly! said:
And even with the terrible shooting, offense hasn't been nearly as bad as the defense IMO. The offense - the awful shooting has been really frustrating to watch and hasn't been good by any means, but defense has been abysmal.

No competitiveness, the scheme/coaching hasn't seemed to suit the players either.... we just haven't even belonged on the court. Looked like a 16 seed the other night.
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Yes, the defense is beyond terrible. But man, we probably have the easiest offense to gameplan I've ever seen. It's about as close as you can get to just rolling the ball out and letting them play
 
#232      
bluemountain
BalloonsTheElephant said:
My preferred options are:

Replace Kwa and Hamer. Move Tyler to the end of the bench.

Send Brad to a Basketball Coaching clinic where he learns to counter our PG getting doubled on a ball screen.

Replace Brad with Beard, Wade, Golden, or Miller (in that order). Beard and Golden are somewhat risky with baggage. Wade was just ahead of his time, lol.

The only way we move on from Brad is if we literally have one of those four on a plane to Champaign and a signed contract.

Brad's good enough, he just needs the support staff for game management.
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This reeks of bringing in Petrino and Koenning to prop up Zook
 
#234      
dainjazoner
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no matter how we spin it this year is a bottom 5 coaching performance in the conference. his message has fell on deaf ears along with the bad evals.
 
#235      
Heisenbobble
Just to put this out there: insiders on other message boards don't think Brad is actively looking to leave Illinois and he has the full support of big-time donors. It's mostly we fans that are upset with him. *shrug* No idea how credible these other insiders are, but there's that.
 
#236      
logjam
sacraig said:
To be fair, I am stressing about the current season. All coaching speculation on my part (and it is exactly that: speculation) is to distract me from the dumpster fire that our team has become at the moment. I also recognize the possibility that they get healthy, break their slump, and start playing decent again (though I have stopped holding my breath).
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Totally False Rumor...I've heard Musk is bringing Doge to Illinois to check on wasteful spending on men's BB...😉
 
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#240      
rmlsr
BalloonsTheElephant said:
My preferred options are:

Replace Kwa and Hamer. Move Tyler to the end of the bench.

Send Brad to a Basketball Coaching clinic where he learns to counter our PG getting doubled on a ball screen.

Replace Brad with Beard, Wade, Golden, or Miller (in that order). Beard and Golden are somewhat risky with baggage. Wade was just ahead of his time, lol.

The only way we move on from Brad is if we literally have one of those four on a plane to Champaign and a signed contract.

Brad's good enough, he just needs the support staff for game management.
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There are so many more coaches that would be upgrades over Underwood that we could target. If you don’t see that then you haven’t been watching college basketball outside of the Big10
 
#242      
ChiefGritty
Tables@EddieMunster said:
Yeah, I’m not even mad at Brad over Podz. I like Brad and still hope he figures it out. The issue is the people that want Brad gone now absolutely lost their mind if one would suggest that Brad could’ve handled the situation differently.
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The thing about Underwood at Illinois is not that he's made every right choice and not made mistakes, it's how much he's won and elevated the program DESPITE making his fair share of mistakes.

I have no more explanation or positive spin to offer about the last month and a half than anybody else, but I have decades of being a fan of Illini Basketball that tells me that I'd rather have BU responsible for finding a solution than the coaching carousel.

A day may come when the NIL market has matured to the point that I can confidently say "any Illinois coach can cycle through impact talent, we are permanently in that part of the food chain". But that day is not today, and I'm getting old enough that I really wonder whether anyone who takes BU's ability to bring us great players for granted was actually around for "Dunigan and Humprhey to Oregon" and the like.

We used to dream about the kind of problems we have now.
 
#243      
CleverHandle1
rmlsr said:
There are so many more coaches that would be upgrades over Underwood that we could target. If you don’t see that then you haven’t been watching college basketball outside of the Big10
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I was down on BU after '22-23 season. Had a great year last year. However, he is making a ton of money, and with that, I expect more from him.

I expect him to hire the right assistants. I expect him to have an offense if one-on-one ball fails. I expect him to practice Zone in practice, so the team has, at least, something to go to when the Man-to-Man doesn't work. I expect him to make in-game adjustments. I expect him to lead his team to some high Q1 victories at home.

Give him credit for Illinois's resurgence and making us "national" again. Whether it's good/bad news, it seems Illinois is in the spotlight.

I do think he can motivate his players to play at a better level most of the time. I love the scheduling of top teams, although no more Q4 games, imo.

As someone posted before, if he's not willing to change and take constructive criticism and the team doesn't improve, then it's time to move on.

I hope he, his staff and the players do not give up on this season. If they get that 7th seed, one never knows. Should beat the 10th and no way be afraid of the 2nd seed in R2.
 
#246      
Tables@EddieMunster
ChiefGritty said:
The thing about Underwood at Illinois is not that he's made every right choice and not made mistakes, it's how much he's won and elevated the program DESPITE making his fair share of mistakes.

I have no more explanation or positive spin to offer about the last month and a half than anybody else, but I have decades of being a fan of Illini Basketball that tells me that I'd rather have BU responsible for finding a solution than the coaching carousel.

A day may come when the NIL market has matured to the point that I can confidently say "any Illinois coach can cycle through impact talent, we are permanently in that part of the food chain". But that day is not today, and I'm getting old enough that I really wonder whether anyone who takes BU's ability to bring us great players for granted was actually around for "Dunigan and Humprhey to Oregon" and the like.

We used to dream about the kind of problems we have now.
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Agreed 100% lol. I was here for those days too. And Evan Turner. Iman Shumpert. Jacob Pullen. Demetrius Jackson. I turn 46 tomorrow so my memory isn’t what it used to be but there are 100 more lol.
 
#247      
BashCtIllini
Tables@EddieMunster said:
Yeah, I’m not even mad at Brad over Podz. I like Brad and still hope he figures it out. The issue is the people that want Brad gone now absolutely lost their mind if one would suggest that Brad could’ve handled the situation differently.
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The funny part about Podz leaving is he made it to the NBA just mercilessly jacking 3s at Santa Clara. Let that sink in a moment.
 
#248      
AirNeazy
I think if we're gonna criticize Underwood for losing as a #1 to Loyola and underperforming expectations, etc....than we should first at least give him credit for getting us back to the point where even had expectations to begin with.

The thing that has always made me have faith in BU was his willingness to adapt and change and course correct if things weren't going well, whether it's in his offensive/defensive schemes (remember the up the line pressure from the first 2 years?) or roster construction philosophy. He's always been humble enough to recognize he made a mistake or needs to change things up to remain competitive.

Looking back at the last 4 years, we had a B1G conference chip + rough tourney, then a falloff year, then another B1G chip + E8 season, and now a falloff year again it looks like. I think Brad has more than earned one more year to show that he's still got it and is willing to make the changes again that are necessary.

...however the question here is if BU is willing to do those changes or not? It's been the most striking thing to me this season how "stubborn" he's been. We're still shooting 25+ threes a game as the worst shooting team in the B1G....is this really the same Brad that changed his defense completely in the middle of the season at OK State and almost got them to the S16? The same guy who went from an offense centered around a gigantic big man to booty ball?

It seems pretty clear to me that after making the E8 last year, Brad feels like he's earned the benefit of the doubt and maybe his ego got just a wee bit bigger? Letting TA leave -> promoting Tyler as if NBD....keeping Hamer after we had a marked defensive drop last season, going all in on youth + portal even though it failed in '23....not to mention the hagiographic preseason "behind the look" videos (I remember thinking at the time these were more appropriate for a team coming off a Nat'l Title or at least Final Four vs getting dog walked in the E8).

Brad obviously thrives under job pressure, whether it's at OKSt, or during the '19 season when we started the season badly at 9-5 (or even the #1seed '20 season where we also started 9-5). People forget the calls to fire Brad were much, much louder in December of 2019 than now! I think Josh ultimately has got to decide if BU still has that pressure/fire in his belly to make the decisions that need to be made. If he's just resting on his laurels now that he's taken us to our first E8 in 20 years, and wants to potentially cash out with a low pressure gig at South Carolina where he can name Tyle HC-in-waiting.............. then maybe it might be best for both parties to split. But in Josh I trust!!
 
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#249      
Illini2010-11
CleverHandle1 said:
I was down on BU after '22-23 season. Had a great year last year. However, he is making a ton of money, and with that, I expect more from him.

I expect him to hire the right assistants. I expect him to have an offense if one-on-one ball fails. I expect him to practice Zone in practice, so the team has, at least, something to go to when the Man-to-Man doesn't work. I expect him to make in-game adjustments. I expect him to lead his team to some high Q1 victories at home.

Give him credit for Illinois's resurgence and making us "national" again. Whether it's good/bad news, it seems Illinois is in the spotlight.

I do think he can motivate his players to play at a better level most of the time. I love the scheduling of top teams, although no more Q4 games, imo.

As someone posted before, if he's not willing to change and take constructive criticism and the team doesn't improve, then it's time to move on.

I hope he, his staff and the players do not give up on this season. If they get that 7th seed, one never knows. Should beat the 10th and no way be afraid of the 2nd seed in R2.
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I disagree here, as you need to fill in early season games that will allow for scrimmage like games and get deep in bench. By end of regular season, if everything holds relatively steady: The Illini will have played 18 Quad 1 games, 7 Quad 2 games, 0 Quad 3 games, and 6 Quad 4 games. That is a remarkably crazy challenging schedule. I do not see much difference between quad 3 and quad 4 for the most part here (when it comes to scheduling non-conference games), so only scheduling about 20% of the games against lower-tier teams (in lower half tier), that is actually quite a good schedule (58% of games are tier 1!).
 
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